CALL me old fashioned, indeed a bit of a romantic, but I don’t really go in for all this buying success lark.

It didn’t sit well when the likes of Chelsea and Fulham were suddenly flush with the weight of Roman Abramovich’s rubles and Mohamed Al Fayed’s fortune well before Manchester City’s sheikhs shook football’s foundations by taking spending to stratospheric levels – the only up-side being the end of that other team from Manchester’s monopoly on the title.

Give me a Blackpool any day of the week; their promotion to the Premiership a couple of seasons ago was built on hard work and team spirit by a manager working with limited talent and a shoestring budget.

But the way of the football world these days, it seems that foreign investors are queueing up to get in on the act.

Going are the days of a local lad done good, like steel baron Jack Walker pumping in millions to Blackburn to buy the championship.

Now owned by Indian poultry business Venky’s, the Lancashire club – who appear to have lost sight of their motto ‘Arte et labore’ which translates to ‘By skill and hard work’ – are now reportedly being courted by Middle East oil giant Qatar Petroleum.

It makes you wonder what the attraction is other than the obvious fact that Rovers are already established in the top flight, albeit skating on extremely thin ice in their bid to stay there.

Their status aside, Ewood Park is the least attended in the Premier League for the size of the stadium which is not surprising given the club’s proximity to their heavy-weight neighbours all vying for the same support and getting it.

So why does no-one seem that keen on Coventry City, the only club in town and arguably far enough from Brum to command their own significant fanbase given a bit of success?

Even Leicester have got in on the act with their Thai owners who, rumour has it, looked at the Sky Blues before deciding to invest up the road.

But the Ricoh Arena with its superb profile and impressive growing portfolio, not to mention the huge potential for further development of the site, must surely be an attractive proposition for a ridiculously rich investor looking for a vanity club.

I repeat, I’m not a fan of buying success but as the saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

* Tuesday will see the first return of a couple of familiar faces at the Ricoh Arena when Cardiff City come to town.

Aron Gunnarsson and Ben Turner are expected to be in the Bluebirds starting line-up after quickly establishing themselves as favourites at the club.

The pair have been pulling up the proverbial trees in the principality, Gunnarsson scoring three goals in two games recently as well as providing a couple of assists from his projectile throws, while Turner has looked rock solid at the back and heading for arguably his best form yet.

Throw into the mix the fact that Keiren Westwood made his long-awaited debut for Sunderland recently, when he earned rave reviews for a particularly impressive double save against Manchester United, not to mention Marlon King’s influence at Birmingham and it reinforces just how much the four have been missed at Coventry this season.

It is particularly irritating to see Gunnarsson getting among the goals given the fact that in his first few months he is already halfway to his three-year total for the Sky Blues.

The Iceland international used to get into some terrific positions in the box but rarely put the ball in the back of the net.

And having gone from a plethora of six centre-backs in the summer, City have suddenly been hit by a string of injuries which has made the sale of Turner – currently being touted as possible Wales international – appear somewhat regrettable.

The one thing that Gunnarsson, Westwood and King have in common, of course, is that they walked away from the club as free agents, having exercised their right to let their contracts run down.

Sammy Clingan and Martin Cranie are the latest pair to find themselves in a similar position and reading between chairman Ken Dulieu’s lines when he said “some agents and players continue to demand sums that are just not realistic,” the likelihood is that they will follow the same route.

Clingan is saying all the right things but then so did all the others and unless there’s a sudden upturn in fortunes on and off the pitch, who could blame him for wanting out next summer.

At his age he doesn’t want to be battling it out in League One, he wants to be challenging in the Championship in the hope of eventually getting a crack at the Premier League.